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How-to: Promote your website (and drive traffic!) in 15 minutes

Traffic – the crux of any website’s success. With our easy-to-use website builderanybody can create a great looking site for their business, but with over a billion sites out there, how can you drive traffic to yours? We’ve listed some of the quickest ways you can promote your site, without spending a penny.

Search optimisation

With over 3.5 billion searches on Google per day, optimising your site for search engines is a worthwhile pursuit. There are hundreds of different factors that play a role in how well your site ranks, so we’ll focus on the basic important steps you should start with. Firstly, think about keywords. What is your audience likely to be searching for when your site should appear? Go for long-tail keywords (3-4 word phrases) as these often have less competition and are more specific. Secondly, add a meta title, description and tags for the pages on your site or blog posts. These will help search engines understand the content on your site. Thirdly, make sure your site is mobile-friendly. The majority of searches are done on mobiles, so it’s essential that your site is easy to view and navigate on smartphones.

Engaging on social media

When trying to expand your reach on the internet, it’s important to think about where your target audience spends their time online. Create accounts on these social media sites and then follow and engage with people who might be interested in your product or service. Think about current and target customers as well as influential people such as bloggers or journalists who may have a different reach to you. Engaging with these people on social media can help you get noticed. Sharing other people’s content (rather than just your own) can also be a great way to build relationships.

Directory listings

Directory listings help customers find your site online. These listings build up inbound links to your site, which can boost your overall SEO. You can also rest easy knowing your business and contact information is up to date and visible online. Google My Business and Yell are just some of the free online directories you can submit your listing to today. If you have an account with us, you can submit your Yell free listing here.

Contribute to online communities

Being active on different online forums such as Quora or Reddit can be a great way to drive visitors to your site. Look for topics/posts that are relevant to your field and interests. Answer people’s burning questions or just join in the conversations. This will get your name out there and will help you build a reputation within the online community of your area of expertise. Don’t spam forums with links to your site, engage in interesting discussions.

Don’t forget to track and monitor your marketing efforts to evaluate which are worth putting your time into. Google Analytics is a great free tool which will allow you to measure your site hits and analyse where your converting traffic is coming from.